Power Church

The Church As A Source Of Power

Drawing lightning

Science tells us that the best defence against lightning in a thunderstorm is found, not in defiance of it, but in a silent discharge of it.

Go right towards it fearlessly with a pointed lighting rod, and it will follow a fixed law of harmless dispersion into the ground. Is there any way this would work when it comes averting the terrible stroke of Divine wrath?

Let’s see. This text refers us directly back to the final utterance of the Old Testament. There are four books in the Bible which end with a curse: Malachi, Lamentations, Isaiah, and Ecclesiastes. The Hebrew scribes had the custom of repeating the verse just before the pronounced curse in order to close the reading with something besides a down note. The preceding prediction about John seems to have been uttered merely to introduce the warning. And perhaps it is just as profitable to believe that the best way to avoid the judgments of God is to guard carefully against deserving them. Amen?

After this prophetic word quoted from the last seer of the Old Testament times, heaven was silent for four hundred years. God’s people had offended him.

Luke is the next man in line to Malachi. The curse of Malachi is omitted in Luke—the lightning of God’s judgment is drawn. The gospel fulfils the law when it accepts children. God receives the fathers into favour and communion again, when their hearts are turned to their offspring … How much are you doing in this day of gospel privilege to bring the hearts of fathers back to their children? Do we need another prophet, with his hairy raiment and his leather girdle, to come forth from the wilderness? (C.S. Robinson D.D.)

I.